There is a lot of talk about public and compulsory education in the 21st century. Some of this talk is just that... talk. In other cases, the discussion only starts with criticism, then moves to solutions. Check out these examples:

First Place: Stackable Knowledge Units

Winner: Alice Stewart, Associate Professor of Strategic Management, School of Business and Economics, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Idea: Rather than a fixed generic curriculum, Stewart suggests creating specialized stackable "knowledge units" made up of perhaps three or four courses or co-curricular activity units each. This allows students to consume "chunks" of knowledge as needed or desired for career development, have some certificate as an intervening credential, and potentially create a market for knowledge units in specific technical or specialized areas drawn from engineering and the sciences. Individual students could choose and combine accredited knowledge units, even across multiple universities, to create unique career development sequences based on their individual needs.

Stewart: "If breaking down barriers to trade is good for business, it should also be good for business education. Let's create a market for knowledge units instead of degrees."

"The Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have announced an agreement that makes Google Apps for Education available to the 189 K-12 and higher educational institutions in Maryland that are members of MEEC. Google Apps, which is free for educational institutions, currently provides email, documents, group pages, chat and other products to over eight million students.

UMBC’s decision to migrate to Google comes after engaging in conversations with students, faculty and staff. “As we discussed options for outsourcing email with students, they overwhelmingly recommended Google because it works exceptionally well with their mobile lifestyle,” said Mike Carlin, UMBC assistant vice president of IT. “UMBC will immediately set up the 3,000 new students enrolling for classes this fall on Google email and will provide the 10,000 existing students with the option to convert their accounts over to Google in late August 2010. By the start of the spring 2011 semester, we anticipate having all students moved over to Google.”"